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The disadvantage is no big finals games. You often get a standout team and the season is decided with several rounds to go. Even when it's close, the majority of teams are out of contention a long time before the end of the competition. A format with finals keeps fans of more teams interested...

Yep agreed. I didn't mean luck in terms of it being drawn out of a hat, I just mean luck in terms of who has a harder or easier draw in the competition. And that changes naturally as some teams improve or go backwards. Sometimes what seems like a tough draw doesn't end up being that tough and...

There's advantages and disadvantages to every format. Fact is that luck of the draw is a factor in almost every sporting competition including most of the biggest sporting events in the world. Even a tournament like the 6 nations has an element of luck of the draw. It's a single round robin so...

Well teams make their own luck don't they. But it's true that in many sporting competitions the luck of the draw is a factor. The biggest rugby tournament in the world is one! Thankfully not all sporting competitions are exactly the same. And many different models are very successful. For...

Exactly. And it's the biggest sporting league in the world. There are many different tournament formats where not every team plays each other and luck of the draw is a factor. It tends to balance out over time. And a positive is you get more variety year to year. A lot of people just fight...

I would like to see Super Rugby evolve into a global competition with separate conferences in South America and Asia. Or at least two larger conferences in Asia Pacific and the Atlantic (South Africa plus Argentina, and potentially other nearby South American countries). No reason why it can't...

Yep, this is a good idea I think and would surely appeal to broadcasters. Just a match between the ITM Cup and NRC champions would be fine.

So play actually restarted about 15 seconds later, but there was a mistake. This is not an argument against reducing penalty goals. Sometimes you also get matches where it goes penalty, penalty goal, kick off, knock on, scrum, penalty, lineout, knock on, scrum etc. A match with lots of errors...

New ventures always require an investment that may take a while to yield a return. You can't sell a product before it exists, what gets sold is the vision. Potential growth is priced into the value. I mean there's a lot of public companies in the world that don't make a cent that have huge...

You're basically saying if the NRC didn't generate any revenue then the ARU would have lost money. You could say that about anything. The fact is it did generate enough revenue to cover the costs.

And not all rugby diehards prefer the 3/5/7 points system. It's not just fringe fans and rugby league supporters that don't like to see so many penalty goals in a game of rugby. From all the feedback I read on the facebook pages of teams it seemed to me that the rule changes, and particularly...

Well it broke even in year 1 so it's got its head above the water. I don't think it's realistic to think it will equal the popularity of the ITM Cup in just a couple of years. I also don't think selling it overseas is anywhere near as important as selling it in Australia. And I don't see why a...

I presume you are referring to scrum resets? That is a completely separate issue. For the record, I am also not a fan of watching scrum collapses and resets. But my perception was that this wasn't an issue in most NRC matches. And most penalties resulted in a kick for a lineout. Even if the...

I hope they keep the new points system and other law variations. They worked! Apart from some of you fogey's on this website, they were very well received. Give it 5 seasons of consistently exciting rugby and this competition will be in a good place. The only significant difference about the...

Seems like this is starting to happen in Wales. The WRU have now signed 6 players to their new dual contracts (60% covered by the WRU, 40% by their region). 1 of those guys is uncapped, another has just 1. The contracts will allow the WRU to manage the work load of players at Pro 12 and European...

How long has that been the case? It's surprising how low they are ranked given the popularity of rugby in schools and a semi-professional league.

Maybe a third party will organise and promote such events much better than SANZAR would. The unions will receive a cut without taking on the risk. If it works perhaps the ARU should also consider licensing the Australian leg of the world 7's series to this or some other third party. The ARU...

A decent amount of the funding super rugby franchises receive from the ARU is from the value of the super rugby broadcasting and sponsorship rights. French and English clubs receive similar distributions but the bodies that run and negotiate deals for the Aviva Premiership and Top 14 are...

TOCC, what's the point of what you're saying? There's nothing to be done about it. If you want to play for the Wallabies then you're going to have to travel and spend substantial time away from home. But still a lot less than international cricketers, tennis players and formula 1 drivers among...

I meant 3 (sometimes 4) full weeks away. When it's 2 or 3 days at a time I don't think it's so bad. And the extra travel is mitigated to some extent by the fact they get more weeks off than their French playing counterparts. That's the way sport is becoming! The world is shrinking. I...